Our History
Party of Democratic Unity was registered on 13/08/2008 when like-minded members headed by the current chairman Mr. Isaiah Gichu Ndirangu paid the initial application fee of Ksh 2000 at the registrar of society. By that time, political parties in Kenya were about 168 and were registered under Societies Act (Cap 108) as mere societies with legal status as other organizations such as clubs, professional associations, welfare societies, women groups among others.
The Political parties Act came into force on 1st July 2008 seeking to address the problems inherent in political parties as identified by the Kriegler Report. Political parties were now required to have a national outlook, maintain a head office and recruit over 200 members in 8 provinces as was then. The parties were also required to pay Ksh 500,000 as registration fees among other requirements.
By the time the 2007 act was operational, on 1st July 2008, Party of Democratic Unity was not issued with a Certificate of Registration by the Registrar of Societies. After being frustrated for a period of time due to bureaucracy, Party of Democratic Unity moved to court under application No MISC 725 of 2008 under judicial review and applied for an order of mandamus directed at the Registrar of Societies to issue us with a Provisional Certificate which was issued on the 19th December 2008 being registration No 29624
We began the process of being fully registered as a political party immediately. We submitted our application 11 days to the deadline to the Registrar of Political Parties who rejected our application on the basis that the Electoral Commission was disbanded and had no way to verify if we had complied with the 2007 Act. Once again we moved to court under application No 377 of 2009 under judicial review and applied for an order of mandamus to the Registrar of Political Parties to Issue us with Certificate of Full Registration.
The court misinterpreted the law and on 16/02/2010, Judge Roselyne Wendoh dismissed our application. However, we did not agree with the judgement and on 24/02/2010 we filled a notice of Appeal, Civil Appeal No 91 of 2010 and we appealed against the whole judgement on various grounds.
On 1st July 2011 the court of appeal judge E.O Okubasu, P.N Waki and D.K.S Aganyanya allowed our appeal and the registrar of Political Parties was directed to issue Party of Democratic Unity with a Certificate of Full Registration.
On 1st August 2011, the party of Democratic unity, was issued with a certificate No. 0049 of Full Registration under the Political Parties Act 2007. Parliament introduced more stringent measures to the Political parties Act 2007. The Political Parties Act 2011 was passed into law and Political Parties registered under Political Parties Act 2007, their certificates became provisional and were required to open more than 24 offices in different counties among other requirements.
The Party of Democratic Unity complied with all these requirements within time and on 14th May 2012, the party was issued with a certificate of full registration under the current Political Parties Act 2011 with certificate of Full Registration No. 0044 which is still valid to date.